WASHINGTON - President Obama is directing top immigration officials to review U.S. deportation practices to see whether they can be carried out "more humanely" while still enforcing the laws on the books. 
 
 In an evening meeting with Latino lawmakers, Obama said he still wanted to push a comprehensive immigration reform package but that, in the meantime, he had asked the head of the Department of Homeland Security to run an "inventory" of the agency’s practices. 
 
 Obama "emphasized his deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement released after the meeting. 
 
 Obama made the private announcement at a time when he is coming under increasing pressure from Latino lawmakers and other leaders to ease deportations even if Congress isn’t willing to pass an immigration reform package this year. 
 
 With hope for an immigration overhaul all but dead for the year, advocates are calling for executive action in increasingly forceful terms. Last week, the head of the country’s largest Latino advocacy group pronounced Obama the "deporter in chief." 
 
 Obama’s fellow Illinois Democrat Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez echoed the phrase on the House floor, noting that Obama had presided over a record number of deportations. About 2 million people have been ejected from the U.S. since Obama took office. 
 
 The idea that Obama might take executive action doesn’t come out of the blue. In 2012, Obama announced that he would temporarily stop deporting many immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children. 
 
 ‎Advocates have demanded that Obama extend that protection to others, such as the families of those young immigrants. They have also called for changes in other enforcement programs, including cooperative agreements between immigration authorities and local government agencies. 
 
 But Obama has said he thinks he has pushed his executive power as far as it will go on the matter. Republican critics have cited Obama’s past actions as a reason not to trust him to enforce the law as it stands.‎ 
 
 Obama has also told top advisors that, when it comes to tough questions on immigration policy, he wants to hear from the people most likely to be affected. 
 
 The White House has been frustrated by immigration activists' decision to turn their focus on the president. Officials said they believed the strategy only served as a distraction that has taken pressure off Republicans. 
 
 On Thursday, Obama hosted Gutierrez, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas) and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) for a meeting in the Oval Office. 
 
 They talked about their mutual efforts to pass "common sense" immigration reform through the House this year and about the need to "put pressure on congressional Republicans" to pass a bipartisan package, Carney said. 
 
 christi.parsons@latimes.com 
 
 Twitter: @cparsons 
 
 kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com 
 
 twitter: @khennessey ||||| President Barack Obama finally bowed to pressure from immigration rights activists and signaled on Thursday that he may change his deportation policy. 
 
 The president changed course after months of claiming there was nothing his White House could do to stem the flow of deportations of undocumented immigrants. Obama announced in a meeting readout that he has requested a review of his administration’s enforcement policies for immigration laws to see if that enforcement can be done “more humanely within the confines of the law,” the White House said Thursday. 
 
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 To immigrant rights activists, however, that is something of a victory. It means Obama is taking steps toward changing the administration’s deportation policies — though the groups won’t be satisfied until the policies are in force. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama to meet with immigration advocates Friday) 
 
 The announcement comes after Obama and the White House for months insisted there was nothing the administration could do to stem the flow of deportations short of Congress passing comprehensive immigration reform, which is unlikely to happen soon. And it came as Hispanic lawmakers were weighing a formal statement demanding Obama act on his own. 
 
 The White House made the announcement after Obama met for more than an hour Thursday evening with three leading members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus amid a furor in the Latino and immigration-rights community over the number of deportations of undocumented immigrants during his administration. 
 
 “The president emphasized his deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system,” the White House said in a readout of the meeting. 
 
 Obama asked Jeh Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, to conduct the review, the White House said. Democratic Reps. Xavier Becerra of California, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Rubén Hinojosa of Texas attended the Thursday meeting at the White House. The three congressmen did not speak to reporters upon leaving the White House. 
 
 (PHOTOS: An immigration naturalization ceremony) 
 
 “It is clear that the pleas from the community got through to the President,” Gutierrez said in a later statement. “The CHC will work with him to keep families together. The President clearly expressed the heartbreak he feels because of the devastating effect that deportations have on families.” 
 
 The CHC released a statement late Thursday calling the meeting “productive” and saying members will meet soon with Johnson to discuss “moving forward in a constructive manner.” 
 
 The White House has scheduled a meeting Friday afternoon with Obama for a half-dozen top immigration activists, many of whom have demanded the president do something on immigration. 
 
 The White House meeting came as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which has played a key role on setting immigration policy for House Democrats, has been wrestling with a resolution aimed at Obama on deportations that would take a sharp line against the administration. 
 
 Key lawmakers and immigration reform advocates, highly skeptical that the GOP-led House will take up legislation this year, have upped pressure on the Obama administration to use executive action to suspend deportations they view as unnecessary. 
 
 Obama and his aides had repeatedly said that is not an option. Still, advocates were hopeful that Obama will issue a directive similar to one he announced in spring 2012, which deferred deportations for hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.
– Just how deportation is handled by the US government will get a fresh look: President Obama yesterday ordered a review of deportations to see if they can be carried out "more humanely within the confines of the law," Politico reports. Though no specifics were given, the review, to be conducted by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, comes as Obama has been facing intense pressure from immigration rights activists, who've dubbed him "deporter in chief" due to the record number of deportations under his watch, the Los Angeles Times notes. Obama broke the news in a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus yesterday. For months the White House had insisted that nothing could be done on the issue unless the comprehensive immigration reform Obama has been pushing was passed by Congress. But as that looks unlikely, Obama has "emphasized his deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. "It is clear that the pleas from the community got through to the president," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who met with Obama yesterday. "The CHC will work with him to keep families together." Activists tell the New York Times, however, the review isn't likely to go far enough.