"We could do a lot more to protect those people," Kerry told the Huffington Post.
The Secretary of State made the remarks in response to a question whether the United States can help European and Gulf countries handle hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing the conflicts in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries.
Kerry stated the immigrant crisis underscores the need for countries to "deal with the source" of the problem and prevent mass exodus of people in the first place.
When asked whether the United States could help by taking in refugees, Kerry said he was not "talking about taking [migrants] on a permanent basis."
He noted that the United States already has opened refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.
"I hope this will be more of a call to a lot of countries that there has to be more focus" on the underlying cause of the immigrant crisis, Kerry concluded.
On Thursday, the White House said Washington does not plan to make any immigration policy changes to allow Middle Eastern refugees into the United States.
More than 340,000 undocumented migrants have illegally entered the European Union in the first seven months of 2015, according to Frontex, the bloc's external border protection agency.
