File-Sharing CSAM Storage Categorically Qualifies as INA “Crime of Child Abuse,” and Categorical Analysis Uses the State Statute in Effect at the Time of the Conduct

1. Introduction

This published Fourth Circuit decision addresses when a state conviction for handling child sexual abuse material (CSAM) triggers removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), and how federal courts should identify the “version” of state criminal law to use in the categorical approach when the statute changes between the time of conduct and the time of conviction.

Petitioner Md Farid Uddin, a Bangladeshi native and Canadian citizen, was a lawful permanent resident in New Jersey. He pleaded guilty to N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:24-4(b)(5)(a)(iii) based on 2017 conduct: knowingly storing or maintaining 25+ items depicting sexual exploitation/abuse of a child on a “file-sharing program” designated as available for searching/copying by other computers. DHS initiated removal proceedings. The Immigration Judge found removability because the offense categorically matched a “crime of child abuse,” and denied cancellation/adjustment in discretion. The BIA affirmed removability and adopted the discretionary denials. Uddin sought review.

The Fourth Circuit’s opinion resolves three interrelated issues: (i) which temporal version of state law governs the categorical analysis; (ii) whether the New Jersey file-sharing CSAM storage offense meets the INA “crime of child abuse” definition (particularly the “reasonable probability of harm” element); and (iii) the court’s jurisdiction to review discretionary denials of cancellation of removal and adjustment of status.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The petition was therefore denied as to removability and dismissed as to challenges to discretionary relief.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Categorical approach framework and “realistic probability” requirement

• Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 581 U.S. 385 (2017): reaffirmed that INA consequences turn on the “nature” of the conviction, not the person’s “actual conduct,” anchoring the court’s use of the categorical approach.
• Cruz v. Garland, 101 F.4th 361 (4th Cir. 2024): supplied the controlling Fourth Circuit definition of INA “crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment” as a single category united by crimes that create a high risk of harm, and set the three elements used here (harm/reasonable probability of harm; to a child; culpable mens rea to the conduct).
• Thompson v. Barr, 922 F.3d 528 (4th Cir. 2019) (quoting Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183 (2007)): cautioned that the categorical inquiry is not “legal imagination”; to show overbreadth, a petitioner must demonstrate a “realistic probability” of prosecution for the hypothesized minimum conduct.
• Herrera-Alcala v. Garland, 39 F.4th 233 (4th Cir. 2022): provided standards of review (de novo) and venue rules; also framed how the court reviews BIA and IJ decisions.
• Hsieh v. Bondi, 139 F.4th 337 (4th Cir. 2025): reinforced Cruz’s mens rea requirement and foreclosed Uddin’s argument that “child” in the INA must mean under sixteen (the Fourth Circuit rejected that limitation).

B. Which version of state law applies (time of conduct vs. time of conviction)

• United States v. McLeod, 808 F.3d 972 (4th Cir. 2015): used as a close analogue for evaluating the version of a statute “in effect at the time of the offenses.”
• Carmell v. Texas, 529 U.S. 513 (2000): invoked for the Ex Post Facto principle that a conviction’s judgment of guilt necessarily rests on the law as it existed when the defendant acted.
• State v. Perez, 106 A.3d 1212 (N.J. 2015): supported the court’s understanding that New Jersey bars retroactive application of amendments that alter criminal conduct definitions.
• State v. Higginbotham, 313 A.3d 847 (N.J. 2024): cited as the later state constitutional overbreadth decision about a 2018 amendment category; the Fourth Circuit held it did not matter because the operative law was the 2017 version.
• Persuasive cross-circuit citations confirming the time-of-conduct approach: Salmoran v. Att'y Gen., 909 F.3d 73 (3d Cir. 2018); Cintron v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 882 F.3d 1380 (11th Cir. 2018); United States v. Titties, 852 F.3d 1257 (10th Cir. 2017); Munoz-Ruvalcaba v. Holder, 585 F. App'x 387 (9th Cir. 2014).

C. Administrative-law “Chenery” and affirmance on alternative legal grounds

• Cucalon v. Barr, 958 F.3d 245 (4th Cir. 2020): relied on for the proposition that where the issue is purely legal and remand would be pointless, the court may affirm on the correct legal rationale without violating SEC v. Chenery Corp..
• SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80 (1943): the foundational rule that agencies’ decisions must stand or fall on the reasons the agency gave; the court treated this as flexible where only a legal question is at stake and no factfinding/discretion/policy judgment is required.
• Calcutt v. FDIC, 598 U.S. 623 (2023); Morgan Stanley Cap. Grp. Inc. v. Pub. Util. Dist. No. 1, 554 U.S. 527 (2008); NLRB v. Wyman-Gordon Co., 394 U.S. 759 (1969); FDA v. Wages & White Lion Invs., LLC, 604 U.S. 542 (2025): cited to mark the boundary: affirmance is permissible only when the court is not supplying an agency policy choice or making necessary factual determinations.

D. Peer-to-peer file sharing, dissemination, and harm from CSAM circulation

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 913 (2005): used to describe peer-to-peer architecture and direct user-to-user sharing.
• Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014): cited for the definition of cloud computing (data stored on remote servers), supporting the file-sharing vs. cloud distinction.
• United States v. Stitz, 877 F.3d 533 (4th Cir. 2017); State v. Lyons, 9 A.3d 596 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2010): referenced to describe peer-to-peer networks’ functionality and discoverability.
• United States v. Weast, 811 F.3d 743 (5th Cir. 2016): cited for the proposition that peer-to-peer shared files are keyword-searchable, accessible, and replicable.
• New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982); Paroline v. United States, 572 U.S. 434 (2014): the key harm authorities. The court relied on them to characterize “circulation” as a distinct, ongoing injury to victims, beyond the initial abuse.
• Fourth Circuit applications of revictimization principle: United States v. Williams, 5 F.4th 500 (4th Cir. 2021); United States v. Sanders, 107 F.4th 223 (4th Cir. 2024).
• “Sexting” and self-produced imagery harms: A.H. v. State, 949 So. 2d 234 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2007); United States v. Streett, 434 F. Supp. 3d 1125 (D.N.M. 2020): cited to rebut the idea that adolescent self-production is harmless and to emphasize distinct harms from memorialization and dissemination risks.
• “Morphed images” and real-child interests: Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. 234 (2002); plus lower-court dissemination/harms cases: United States v. Anderson, 759 F.3d 891 (8th Cir. 2014); Shoemaker v. Taylor, 730 F.3d 778 (9th Cir. 2013); United States v. Hotaling, 634 F.3d 725 (2d Cir. 2011).

E. Exhaustion and appellate issue preservation

• Ramirez v. Sessions, 887 F.3d 693 (4th Cir. 2018): used to deem Uddin’s more detailed “minimum conduct” scenarios exhausted because they were subsidiary arguments extending the general harm-likelihood argument presented to the agency.

F. Jurisdiction over discretionary immigration relief

• Patel v. Garland, 596 U.S. 328 (2022): controlled the breadth of § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i)—the jurisdictional bar covers not only the ultimate discretionary decision but also underlying factual determinations and the weighing of equities.
• Wilkinson v. Garland, 601 U.S. 209 (2024): clarified that § 1252(a)(2)(D) preserves review of “questions of law,” including application of a legal standard to settled facts, but not discretionary reweighing.
• Gomis v. Holder, 571 F.3d 353 (4th Cir. 2009): cited for the same “questions of law” jurisdictional carve-out.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. The court’s temporal-choice rule: “convicted of” ties the categorical analysis to the law at the time of conduct

The threshold dispute arose because New Jersey amended the statute in 2018, and the New Jersey Supreme Court in State v. Higginbotham later invalidated one added category as overbroad. Uddin argued that because his plea occurred after the amendment, the categorical analysis should consider the amended (and partially unconstitutional) version and thus fail to match the INA removal ground.

The Fourth Circuit rejected that framing by connecting INA text (“convicted of”) to constitutional baseline principles: a “formal judgment of guilt” necessarily rests on the law defining the offense when the defendant acted, because the Ex Post Facto Clause “permits nothing else” (Carmell v. Texas). The court then grounded the conclusion in record documents (indictment/plea/sentencing) identifying 2017 conduct and in New Jersey’s own anti-retroactivity rule for criminal-definition amendments (State v. Perez). The practical outcome was decisive: Higginbotham did not affect Uddin’s conviction because the 2017 statutory scope controlled.

B. “Reasonable probability of harm” satisfied: file-sharing availability is the harm-enabling feature

Applying Cruz v. Garland, the court treated “crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment” as a single INA category and asked whether the minimum conduct creates a “reasonable probability of harm” to a child. The statutory minimum conduct was not mere private possession; it was knowing storage/maintenance on a “file-sharing program” “designated as available for searching by or copying to” other computers.

The court’s reasoning proceeds in three linked steps:

1. Constraining the minimum conduct to peer-to-peer file-sharing as defined by statute and state practice. The statutory definition requires the program to permit direct transmission to other computers and to request transmission directly from other computers. That “direct computer-to-computer exchange,” illustrated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., is the “hallmark” of peer-to-peer networks. The court emphasized that New Jersey prosecutions under this subsection involve dedicated peer-to-peer programs (BitTorrent, eMule), and it rejected the idea that cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud) qualifies because cloud services route through a central server (Riley v. California). It also addressed Uddin’s reliance on State v. Debiasse as inapposite because the defendant there pleaded to a different subsection.
2. Identifying the legally relevant harm as “circulation” and “revictimization.” The court treated circulation as the operative injury: storing CSAM in a setting designed for discovery and copying creates a reasonable probability of dissemination. It relied on New York v. Ferber and Paroline v. United States to characterize circulation as an independent harm that renews trauma and perpetuates the abuse as a “permanent record,” even apart from the initial production harm.
3. Rejecting low-harm hypotheticals because the statute’s “availability” element transforms them into publication-like conduct. Uddin offered minimum-conduct scenarios—private storage without distribution, adolescent consensual exchange, and “morphed images.” The court’s consistent response was that each scenario ignores the statutory requirement of file-sharing designation as searchable/copyable by others. That feature converts “private” keeping into exposure to a network designed for replication and retrieval. Even in adolescent self-produced contexts, the court cited authorities recognizing distinct harms from memorialization and risk of broader dissemination (A.H. v. State; United States v. Streett) and treated New Jersey law as recognizing those harms too. For “morphed images,” the court relied on Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coal. and related cases to conclude that manipulated images can still “implicate the interests of real children,” and that circulation creates real psychological harms.

The bottom line is a tight fit between the state offense’s minimum elements and Cruz’s INA harm standard: maintaining CSAM on a peer-to-peer network that makes it searchable and copyable creates a “reasonable probability” of further dissemination, and dissemination itself is the cognizable harm to the depicted child.

C. Mens rea treated as satisfied by knowing maintenance on a file-sharing program

The opinion also clarifies a recurring peer-to-peer defense: “I didn’t know the sharing settings.” The court reasoned that the culpable mens rea attaches to knowingly maintaining CSAM on a program that, by statutory definition, has the capacity to make files available for searching/copying. Thus, knowledge is not defeated by ignorance of a “specific toggle,” and the IJ permissibly discounted Uddin’s “accidental download” narrative because he knowingly maintained the material after learning it existed.

D. Jurisdiction: no review of discretionary reweighing dressed up as legal error

On cancellation of removal and adjustment/waiver, the court applied the jurisdiction-stripping rule of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i), as interpreted by Patel v. Garland, to hold it lacked authority to revisit the agency’s weighing of favorable and unfavorable equities. The court acknowledged § 1252(a)(2)(D) (as explained in Wilkinson v. Garland) preserves review of “questions of law,” but concluded Uddin’s arguments were not legal questions; they were attempts to re-litigate evidentiary weight and factual characterization.

3.3 Impact

A. Expanded clarity for “crime of child abuse” removability involving CSAM and networked availability

The decision strengthens the Fourth Circuit’s post-Cruz framework by holding that the probability of circulation inherent in peer-to-peer file-sharing is sufficient to satisfy the “reasonable probability of harm” element—without requiring proof that a third party actually downloaded the files. This is likely to influence future categorical analyses of statutes that sit between “possession” and “distribution,” especially where the offense includes an element of network accessibility.

B. A concrete temporal rule for changing state statutes in categorical analysis

The court’s time-of-conduct approach reduces incentives for removal litigation that attempts to exploit later amendments (or later-invalidated amendments) to a statute of conviction. By tying “convicted of” to the statute defining the offense at the time of the conduct, the Fourth Circuit aligned itself with multiple circuits and added a constitutional rationale (Ex Post Facto) that will be difficult to dislodge in subsequent cases.

C. Administrative-law and appellate practice: narrowed remand obligations for purely legal categorical questions

By emphasizing Cucalon v. Barr and delineating when SEC v. Chenery Corp. does not compel remand, the opinion signals that in removal cases presenting pure questions of law (like categorical matching), the Fourth Circuit may affirm on a correct legal rationale even if the BIA’s reasoning differs—so long as the court is not making factual findings or supplying policy judgments.

D. Reinforced limits on judicial review of discretionary relief

The jurisdiction discussion—rooted in Patel v. Garland and Wilkinson v. Garland—underscores that petitioners must identify genuine “questions of law” to obtain review; merely repackaging disagreements with the agency’s weighing of equities will be dismissed.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Categorical approach: The court asks whether the statutory elements of the conviction offense (the minimum conduct the statute necessarily covers) match the federal removal category—without re-trying what the person actually did.
• “Realistic probability” test: To show a statute is broader than the federal category, it is not enough to imagine unusual applications; the petitioner must show the state actually would apply the statute to that minimum conduct in a real case (Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez).
• INA “crime of child abuse” (Fourth Circuit): Under Cruz v. Garland, this is a single umbrella category for crimes that cause injury to a child or create a “reasonable probability” of injury, with a culpable mens rea to the conduct.
• Peer-to-peer file sharing vs. cloud storage: Peer-to-peer networks are designed for direct user-to-user transmission and discovery; cloud services store files on central servers and are not, by that architecture alone, “peer-to-peer.”
• Chenery doctrine: Courts typically cannot uphold agency action on grounds the agency did not give. This opinion explains that when the question is purely legal and remand would be pointless, affirmance on the correct legal rationale may be permissible, provided the court is not making factual/policy choices.
• Jurisdiction stripping over discretionary relief: Congress barred courts from reviewing many discretionary immigration decisions; courts may review only legal questions, not reweighing of equities or underlying factual judgments (Patel v. Garland).

5. Conclusion

Md Uddin v. Todd Blanche delivers two doctrinally significant clarifications for immigration removability litigation in the Fourth Circuit. First, categorical analysis looks to the state statute as it existed at the time of the criminal conduct, not later amendments or later state constitutional decisions about those amendments. Second, a conviction for knowingly maintaining CSAM on a peer-to-peer file-sharing program designated as searchable/copyable categorically qualifies as an INA “crime of child abuse” because it creates a reasonable probability of harmful circulation—harm understood as the revictimization and ongoing trauma recognized in New York v. Ferber and Paroline v. United States. Finally, the opinion reinforces that federal courts cannot review discretionary denials of cancellation and adjustment absent a genuine question of law, and that attempts to repackage factual reweighing as legal error will be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.