With Antisemitic And Anti-Muslim Attacks On The Rise, Gillibrand Leads Bipartisan Push For Funding To Protect Synagogues, Mosques, And Other Religious Institutions

With Antisemitic And Anti-Muslim Attacks On The Rise, Gillibrand Leads Bipartisan Push For Funding To Protect Synagogues, Mosques, And Other Religious Institutions

Apr 20, 2026

Funding Through The Nonprofit Security Grant Program Would Help At-Risk Religious Institutions and Other Nonprofits Protect Themselves Against Terror Attacks

Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, led more than 40 Senate colleagues in a bipartisan letter requesting $750,000,000 for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) in the Fiscal Year 2027 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. NSGP funding provides the security needed to protect nonprofit organizations, particularly houses of worship and other faith-based organizations, with physical security enhancements and emergency preparedness training in order for these places to allow individuals to worship in religious sanctuaries without fear of attacks. This program is critical to addressing the increasingly large uptick in threats and acts of violence against religious institutions across the country. Senator Gillibrand leads the effort to fund NSGP each year.

In their letter, the senators wrote that NSGP provides "critical security resources to at-risk faith-based and other nonprofit institutions located in urban, suburban, and rural communities. In addition to ensuring that the NSGP is funded at these levels, we also again urge the committee to advocate for and maintain separate line-items for this program. The program provides critical security resources to at-risk faith-based and other nonprofit institutions located in urban, suburban, and rural communities."

The senators continued in their letter, "In 2025, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Audit of Antisemitic Incidents recorded nearly 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the United States, an over 893 percent increase over the past decade and the highest number recorded in a single year since ADL started tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979."

The senators further noted, "Even with the additional NSGP funding provided by the National Security Supplemental Act for FY2024, FEMA could only fund 43 percent of all grant applicants. This left more than half of the applicants without the funding they needed to provide security to their at-risk institutions."

Other senators who joined the letter included Gary Peters (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), James Lankford (R-OK), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Edward Markey (D-MA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

The full text of the letter can be found here.

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