A new study found that a large percentage of undocumented immigrants will not be targeted for deportations due to a new policy being implemented by the Department of Homeland Security.

The report, which was published Thursday by Migration Policy Institute (MPI), states that up to 87 percent of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. likely will not be targeted by immigration authorities, if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directly adheres to new policy guidelines enacted in November by the Obama Administration.

Under the policy, the DHS will be directed to focus mainly on deporting foreign nationals with serious criminal convictions, like gang involvement, and people who pose a threat to national security. As a result, the amount of undocumented immigrants who have no serious criminal records will be reduced considerably.

According to the report, only 1.4 million of an estimated 11 million "unauthorized immigrants" in the US have criminal convictions or crossed the border on or after January 2014.

"Changes to the immigration enforcement system ordered by President Obama could, if strictly implemented, offer a degree of protection from deportation to 87 percent of the nation's estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants, up from about 73 percent under earlier guideless," reads an MPI statement, reports the Miami Herald.

"The effect of the new policy guidance on deportation will depend to a large degree on implementation," said MPI senior fellow Doris Meissner, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner.

According to the 36-page MPI study, this policy would reduce deportations from within the U.S by about 25,000 cases earch year. It would also eventually extend deportation protection to a much broader number of undocumented immigrants.

"The overall impact of the new [policy] is to describe DHS enforcement priorities more precisely and more narrowly than was the case under the 2010 and 2011 guidance, while broadening the circumstances under which DHS personnel should exercise discretion - including by identifying reasons departmental personnel may choose not to deport people who generally fall within the enforcement priorities," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement.