Michael Masters, the CEO of the Secure Community Network, sat down last week with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem amid a push from Jewish community groups for additional security resources to address rising levels of antisemitism. 

The meeting was among the most high-level sit-downs between Noem and Jewish communal leaders since she took office.

“The secretary is very, very clear in her understanding and commitment to addressing the threat environment, particularly as it pertains to the faith-based community and the Jewish community and deeply understands the issues and concerns facing the community … and the scope of the department in being able to do that,” Masters told Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday.

SCN supported Noem during her confirmation process, and Masters said that she “evidenced a clear understanding and appreciation for the importance of this issue,” and called their sit-down “an encouraging sign.”

He also praised the work she’d done in her prior role, as governor of South Dakota, to protect the state’s Jewish community and understand its needs.

Masters said he and Noem discussed the threats facing the Jewish and other faith-based communities and the ways that SCN has worked with DHS in the past.

“So many of these threats are crossing over different faith based communities and historically, the department has been a convener and coordinator and supporter of efforts of the faith-based community to come together to address those as a whole,” Masters said. “And she firmly embraces that, I think, as a public official and as a person.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Masters said that leaders across the federal government, including at the FBI, DHS, Department of Justice and the White House, understand that, “you cannot disassociate the safety and security of the Jewish community from the safety and security of the broader faith-based community, or from the domestic, homeland and national security of the United States.”

One priority for Masters in the meeting, he said, was pushing for the release of the application for 2025 Nonprofit Security Grant Program Funding, which opened on Monday.

“That was the focal point, and has been the focal point for many of our conversations,” Masters said, adding that he was “very encouraged” to see the applications open following his meeting and a push from various other Jewish community stakeholders and lawmakers.

“There’s going to be a bunch of follow-up related to the condensed time frame,” he continued, “and then the remainder of the supplemental. We will be able to turn our attention to that once we get through the current push of getting people’s applications in for this year’s awards.”

Organizations applied last year for a tranche of more than $100 million in NSGP funds provided through last year’s national security supplemental funding bill that has yet to be awarded or released.

Another issue Masters said he’d spoken about with Noem was the plan to cut the majority of the DHS’s Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) division’s staff; Masters wrote to Noem directly earlier this month to offer recommended reforms and overhauls for that office.

“We have worked with I&A since its creation,” Masters said. “There are significant efficiencies to be found [but] I&A is the only statutorily authorized entity that has a responsibility and a mission set related to state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement and private nonprofit sector partners. It needs to do a much better job of servicing those stakeholders and there are dedicated men and women in I&A who have worked to do that.”

He said that Noem has already been working toward some of the same goals he outlined, including sending DHS agents out of headquarters in Washington and into the field to work on critical issues on the ground.

“Many of us who served in law enforcement and the associations that are currently dealing with I&A — and certainly SCN — we support this effort, but it will be a work in progress for some time,” he said, explaining that the office’s mission and mandate has shifted between and during various administrations.

“All of us are committed, from law enforcement and those of us who deal in the security space, to working to support the effort to make sure that I&A can be as effective as it can be, that it is fit for its mission, it’s sized for its mission and that it’s structured in a way that allows it to be effective,” Masters continued.

Masters, along with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick and national law enforcement leaders, also attended a private roundtable with members of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee last week.

“For the fourth consecutive year, antisemitic violence and acts of terror have risen in all 50 states. This is not a localized issue—it’s a national crisis,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) said in a statement. “Last week’s roundtable provided an important opportunity to hear directly from law enforcement officials and Jewish community leaders about this alarming surge.”

He said the participants made clear the need for “stronger interagency coordination, enhanced intelligence sharing, targeted training, and robust enforcement.”

He vowed to work with colleagues to take action and address antisemitism.

“Silence in the face of antisemitism is complicity. Hatred and bigotry have no place in America, and every person deserves to live without fear,” he said.

Masters said that the Jewish and law enforcement leaders were “all aligned in the importance of addressing the threat environment facing the Jewish community, in the importance of addressing hate crimes broadly, and in the necessity of strong, consistent, predictable funding for law enforcement.”

He said they’d discussed issues including I&A and the need for strong collaboration and communication to address threats to the Jewish community and the country as a whole.

“I deeply appreciated the opportunity to meet with the committee on the rise in antisemitic violence and the concrete steps necessary to protect our communities,” Spitalnick told JI, adding that she had advocated for NSGP funding to be released. 

“There is still significant work to be done to ensure this critical security program is properly funded and the dollars are moved quickly to protect our communities,” she continued. “We also made clear that the crisis of antisemitism and broader extremism requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society solution — aimed at building resiliency to hate and violence in the first place. Yet too many programs — such as hate crime prevention grants — have been frozen, cut or insufficiently funded at levels that do not match the dire need.”