Pascrell Leads 79 Members of Congress Demanding $360 Million to Protect Houses of Worship

Nonprofit security grants remain vital amid rise in hate, Antisemitism

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) today led an official request to fund the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) at $360,000,000 for Fiscal Year 2023, to be split evenly among the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) NSGP and the State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGP) NSGP. In a letter to appropriators, Pascrell and his co-signers cited several recent hate-fueled incidents targeting marginalized groups as a basis for their sizable funding request.

“[T]oday’s threat environment provides a compelling public interest in protecting against attacks on the nonprofit sector that would disrupt the vital health, human, social, cultural, religious, and other humanitarian services and practices they provide to communities, and which threaten the lives and well-being of millions of Americans who operate, utilize, live, and work in proximity to them,” the letter states. “For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to strengthen the Nonprofit Security Grant Program by funding the UASI NSGP at $180 million and $180 million for the SHSGP NSGP.”

The members’ full letter is available here.

Rep. Pascrell is a longtime leader in Congress in safeguarding houses of worship. He began the fight to fund NSGP at $360 million in May, leading 161 colleagues in the initial request. On February 23, 2022, Pascrell joined local community leaders in Passaic, New Jersey to stress the importance of Congress increasing NSGP funding to protect local synagogues and other houses of worship in North Jersey and across America. Also In February 2022, Pascrell led a bipartisan letter signed by 175 of his colleagues demanding a dramatic raise. Weeks later the Congress passed a law to increase funding for NSGP UASI and SHSGP this fiscal year at the historically high level of $250 million.

On May 3, 2021, Reps. Pascrell and John Katko (R-NY-24), the Ranking Member of the House Homeland Security Committee led 143 House members requesting that the NSGP program be funded at $360 million.

Rep. Pascrell regularly leads the fight to increase NSGP funding in the House and works around the clock to obtain needed anti-terror grants for New Jersey. He helped secure more than $9.5 million in Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding for New Jersey in July 2020, including $1.08 million for community centers in the Ninth District. In 2020, Rep. Pascrell helped lead legislation which officially authorized the Nonprofit Security Grant Programs because the programs only been previously funded through annual appropriations process and had never been officially authorized.

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