Washington, January 19 (RHC-teleSUR) -- The United States deported 133 Hondurans Monday, bringing the total number of Honduran deportees in this year to nearly 1,000.

According to the Center for Returned Migrants, 938 Hondurans have been flown back to their home country since January 1.

In 2015, Mexico and the United States sent back 65,000 Hondurans, over 5,000 of whom were minors.

Root causes of mass migration from Honduras include violence, crime, a lack of employment opportunities, widespread internal displacement partly caused by gang violence and a lack of government attention to the migration crisis and its underlying causes.

Honduras has a homicide rate of 57 murders per 100,000 people, making it one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America.

Once migrants and refugees are returned to Honduras, rights defenders point out that the same issues and concerns that spur such examples of mass-migration continue to afflict the country.

As part of the effort to manage the influx of Honduran migrants, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that people fleeing violence from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, also known as the “Northern Triangle,” will be eligible to apply for refugee status before they reach U.S. soil.

Kerry said the move by Washington seeks to prevent migrants and refugees becoming “easy prey for human smugglers who have no interest but their own profits.”