Videos show Border Patrol agents intercepting Christmas shoppers outside Walmart and other stores in Illinois, with photographer Michael Kelly capturing controversial ID checks that he believes represent racial profiling

Footage has emerged showing Border Patrol (CBP) agents stopping shoppers outside neighborhood stores, including Walmart and Sam's Club.

Michael Kelly, a 26-year-old real estate manager and photographer from Melrose Park, Illinois, filmed the incidents after spotting convoys of vehicles patrolling busy shopping areas.

The video shows Border Patrol officers detaining a woman outside a laundromat and threatening to arrest Kelly for filming the encounter. Kelly believes these incidents reflect a growing pattern throughout the Chicago area, raising alarm about racial profiling and immigration enforcement methods.

"This is actually quite normal, but you rarely get it on video, which is why I think it gained a lot of traction," Kelly remarked.

He elaborated: "What they do is they kind of make a circuit. They hit popular stores that people go to on a daily basis, your Home Depots, Menards, Walmarts, and they will quickly pull in."

Kelly characterized the operation as involving six or seven vehicles that would show up like "this big parade of cars" before agents would "hop out and question whoever is right there". He indicated that the targeting appeared arbitrary rather than intelligence-driven.

"If someone's walking out of the store, if they're going in, it's whoever is the unlucky person to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Kelly said.

In one incident he documented on film, Kelly described how he "intercepted" an agent "just as he approached this young woman" watching the officer "proceed to badger her with questions very fast, not even really allowing her time to answer."

ICE agents patrol Walmart and Sam's Club in Chicago

Kelly's recording of the woman's reaction was quite telling.

"You can kind of see from her expression that she's shocked at the situation she was finding herself in," he observed.

"And you can tell by the questions, this is not a targeted person. This is just someone that they purely picked based on the color of their skin."

In the video, filmed in Cicero, an officer is shown grilling the woman, demanding, "Are you from here? Where's here? What country? Were you born here?".

The woman, who proved to be a U.S. citizen, was not held after the interrogation, according to Kelly.

The photographer detailed his intentional composition to capture the Walmart logo in his recording, explaining, "because I wanted to show in that video that this isn't a targeted immigration raid, that this was a random customer at a random Walmart location".

Kelly, who has been documenting ICE and Border Patrol activities in the Chicago area for several months, describes these incidents as part of a broader enforcement pattern that has intensified lately.

"We're seeing this happen all throughout the city and its suburbs of Chicago," he stated.

Local resident captures tactics on camera

"I know people personally that are being pulled over, being asked to provide a passport on the spot or other documents proving they're a citizen, which very few people carry on a daily basis."

Kelly discloses his motivation behind the filming was to document what he views as concerning changes in immigration enforcement strategies.

"My instinct in that situation was just to capture that setting and expose some of the tactics that are being used here," Kelly said.

"I think a lot of people question some of those tactics, and it was just to shine a light on what's become the new norm here in the Chicagoland area."

Border Patrol has not yet responded to requests for comment.