Social media users accused Congresswoman Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) of virtue signaling after photos surfaced from last year showing her pouting outside a migrant detention facility in Texas.

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Photographer Ivan Pierre Aguirre posted the photos to Twitter Monday, which he claimed showed the then-unknown Cortez taking “time away from her campaign” to protest the tent city in Tornillo, Texas.

Before @AOC hit the national stage & was just a fairly unknown House candidate frm NYC,she took time awy frm her campaign & came dwn to #Tornillo to protest the #tentcity housing migrant children.I made these previously unpublished fotos a yr ago today. #elpaso #aoc #onassignment pic.twitter.com/SWyyI1XVt9 — Ivan Pierre Aguirre (@i_p_a_1) June 25, 2019

AOC retweeted the images claiming they captured the moment she witnessed the “America I love was becoming a nation that steals refugee children from their parents & caged them.”

I’ll never forget this, because it was the moment I saw with my own eyes that the America I love was becoming a nation that steals refugee children from their parents,& caged them. More kids died after this. To date, no one has been held accountable. We need to save these kids. https://t.co/HhdMqc5zML — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 25, 2019

Many immediately slammed the images for being staged photo ops, while others asked why they highlighted Cortez rather than the children she was supposedly there to defend.

The images also sparked a few memes.

At one point Pierre Aguirre was forced to respond to criticism over the photos’ lack of children, saying they were there despite not being photographed.

Yes, these images don’t show children, that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Also, there are several other tweets/stories I covered that do indeed show those children if you want to look those up. — Ivan Pierre Aguirre (@i_p_a_1) June 25, 2019

The photos come off the heels of remarks from Cortez comparing illegal immigrant detention centers in the US to Nazi-era concentration/death camps.

The timing of the photos is also notable given the current liberal outcry over poor conditions at detention facilities overwhelmed by illegals across the country.

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