House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called for a dramatic increase in funding of the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program, telling a group of Jewish activists on Wednesday that it should receive $1 billion — up from the $300 million that Congress allocated in last month’s homeland security funding bill. 

“The not-for-profit security grant funding program is woefully underfunded. It’s woefully underfunded. $300 million is not acceptable,” Jeffries said at the Jewish Democratic Council of America’s leadership summit in Washington. 

He pointed out that the Pentagon now estimates the cost of the war with Iran so far is $29 billion, and Democrats believe it is possibly much more. 

“We think it’s probably double that. But even if you just take the $29 billion number, how is it possible that we can’t spend at least 500 million? I think the number should be even higher,” said Jeffries. “Why wouldn’t we spend a billion dollars to make sure that the communities that we care about across this country are safe?”

The $300 million approved by Congress last month is a small increase from the $274.5 million allocated to the program in 2024 and 2025. 

Jewish organizations have for years been lobbying for Congress to significantly increase the federal budget for the program, which provides security grants to vulnerable nonprofits, including synagogues and Jewish day schools, arguing that its current level does not come close to meeting the security needs of Jewish institutions. In 2024, more than half of all applications for NSGP funding were declined. 

Jewish communities and institutions are “now spending an outsized amount of budget funding to provide security in America,” Jeffries said. “That should not happen.”

A group of 41 senators last month called for $750 million in funding for the program next year. Last month, a coalition of interfaith groups called for Congress to increase NSGP funding to $1 billion. A bipartisan group of 150 members of the House asked the House Appropriations Committee in March to increase funding to $1 billion, although no members of House leadership in the Democratic or Republican Party signed onto it.