Barack Obama’s Executive Action on immigration, which provided a free break for nonwhite invaders who entered the US before January 1, 2014, created an “open border” situation with Mexico, the head of the National Border Patrol Council (NPBC) told the US Congress.

NPBC president Brandon Judd told the House Judiciary Committee that Border Patrol agents were instructed to take invaders’ “word for it” that they had been in the US before that date, even though they were dripping wet after just having crossed the Rio Grande River.

Judd said that Border Patrol agents were ordered to “release dripping-wet illegal immigrants at the Rio Grande unless they actually see them climbing out of the river.

“This has created what amounts to an open border with Mexico,” Judd said.

The agents were, he continued, given the orders verbally soon after President Obama laid out plans for limiting immigration enforcement in 2014.

“We have apprehended illegal aliens just north of the border who are still soaking wet from crossing the river. If they claim, as increasingly they are doing, that they have been here since January 1, 2014, we will process and then release them,” Judd said in written testimony following up on questions from a hearing earlier this year.

“They are still wet from the river and miles from any civilization and on their word alone we release them unless we physically saw them cross the river,” he said. “This policy de facto creates an open border with Mexico for any illegal alien who wants to claim that they were here before 2014.”

The January 1, 2014, date was part of Obama’s “enforcement priorities” he laid out in November that year, which were designed to remove the threat of deportation to the vast majority of the illegal invaders in the US.

The Obama plan consists of giving long-time illegal immigrants “lower priority” for deportation in favor of recent border-crossers, and those with gang ties or who have amassed serious criminal records in addition to their immigration violations.

The rule meant that those illegal immigrants already in the pipeline for deportation were told they could have their cases dropped if they met the new cutoff and didn’t have serious criminal records.

Judd said that the invaders had quickly learned to “game the system,” and if apprehended anywhere, simply said that they had arrived before 2014—and Border Patrol agents had been instructed to simply “take their word for it” even if it was patently untrue.

Judd added that under the verbal directions, agents have been told to fingerprint illegal immigrants and process them to see if they have serious criminal records.

But those that claim to have been here since 2013, and who don’t show up with problems in their criminal history, are released into the US rather than held for deportation.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican and Judiciary Committee Chairman, agreed, and said that the order had led to more illegal immigrants trying to make the trip into the US.

“Word has spread around the world about the administration’s lax immigration policies and now we see unlawful immigrants gaming the system and the administration’s so-called ‘enforcement priorities’ to come here,” said Goodlatte, after listening to Judd’s testimony.