In response to mounting pressure from immigration activists to halt mass deportations, President Obama is calling for a review of his administration's enforcement policy and is emphasizing the need to make the process more humane.

By April, the total number of undocumented residents deported under the Obama administration is set to reach 2 million, far exceeding any other U.S. president. However, on Thursday, the president revealed his effort to curb deportations during an Oval Office meeting with Hispanic lawmakers where he stressed his "deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system," according to a White House statement, the New York Times reports.

President Obama has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a system-wide review of the enforcement of immigration laws, asking the department "to see how it can conduct enforcement more humanely within the confines of the law," states the White House readout from the meeting.

After the meeting, House Democrat Luis Gutiérrez said that it was "clear that the pleas from the community got through to the president." He added that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) "will work with him to keep families together" and that "the President clearly expressed the heartbreak he feels because of the devastating effect that deportations have on families," reports USA Today.

The president made this announcement after months of claiming that there was nothing he could do to stem the flow of deportations of undocumented immigrants. Instead, he pushed for Congress to pass a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, but immigration advocates insisted that he should halt all deportations until a new law is passed.

In recent years Obama has taken steps to slow down the pace of deportations. In 2012, he created a program to halt the deportations of undocumented workers brought to the country as children. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, over half a million people have qualified for that program.

In November, his administration formalized a program that allows the immediate relatives of U.S. military members who are undocumented immigrants to live in the country.

While Obama has said that's as far as he legally can go, many felt the president could have expanded the protections he gave to young undocumented immigrants to other sectors within the undocumented immigrant population. As of late, Congressional leaders and activists have been pressing Obama to take more action. In November, a heckler interrupted the president at an event in San Francisco, while the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Latino group, dubbed Obama as the "deporter-in-chief."

Although activists praised Obama's new announcement, many will not be satisfied until action has taken place.

"Review cannot be an excuse for delay," said Chris Newman, the legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, according to Politico. "The president has the legal authority and moral obligation to change his deportation policy, and every day he waits will be a blemish on his legacy."

Likewise, Cesar Vargas of the Dream Action Coalition said that "immediate actions will speak louder than press releases."