October 3, 2014  

U.S. tax dollars pay for U.S. mosque security upgrades

… we wonder how much of the security funding will be used to hinder counter-terror and law enforcement efforts.

A recent announcement from the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) / Masjid Al-Rahmah advised that it will be receiving a grant from the Nonprofit Security Grant Program administered through the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA):

ISB will be receiving $74,675.00 which will go towards upgrading, enhancing and adding to our security infrastructure. Over the next several months you will see contractors on-site conducting these security enhancements.

The Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) is nationwide and overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).   Part of DHS’s Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI),  it has been in effect since 2005.   To be eligible the organization must be, ” determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security to be at high risk of terrorist attack due to their ideology, beliefs, or mission”.  For fiscal year 2014, $13,000,000 was set aside for NSGP. The maximum amount that can be awarded to a single group is $75,000.

Since 2007, CAIR has urged Muslim non-profits to apply for the federal security grants. From the CAIR website:

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/17/14) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging mosques and Muslim institutions nationwide to consider applying for funds available through the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP).

The program is designed to assist nonprofit organizations that are vulnerable to terrorist attacks with procuring and installing security equipment to enhance safety.

As for the ISB, it has received several federal security grants in the past:

2012 – $72,750.00
2011  – unknown amount
2008 – unknown amount
2007 – $15,000
2005  – $50,000

With the 2014 $74k+ amount, that totals out to over $212,000 in the last nine years – $147,000 just in the last two years.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

COMMENT/ANALYSIS: The Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) is only one of several mosques that have received past security grants but mosques are not the only groups having tax dollars awarded for security.  A 2011 Judicial Watch report noted that the majority of 2011 grants for ‘target hardening” went to Jewish centers and added:

All 30 of the grants distributed in Illinois went to Chicago-area nonprofits, including a politically-connected college foundation with more than $5 million in assets and several Catholic hospitals.

With the current Islamist push towards establishing mosques as “safe places“, we wonder how much of the security funding will be used to hinder counter-terror and law enforcement efforts.

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14 responses to “U.S. tax dollars pay for U.S. mosque security upgrades”

  1. Brenda Darlene Bailey says :

    I can’t believe you are there. Was just thinking about Obama and the lefties cultural terrorism… I read about Florida politicians, spying on churches over business license. Are mosques required to have business licenses? I thought sharia finance might protect them from tax. Does the government give churches and synagogues grants?

    Reply
    • Craig O'Dell says :

      Brenda, do you even bother READING the articles, or does your bigotry run so deep that you simply post hateful comments any time you see an article featuring anything Islamic? For starters, churches, including mosques, are NOT businesses, so they don’t need a business license. Second, they aren’t taxed in America, again, because they are a religious non-profit (like all the other churches). Finally, if you had read the article you’d know that YES, synagogues and churches DO get the same $75k grants to improve their security…and have received MANY times more money than the mosques have, even though mosques are attacked at a much, much higher rate than any other religious institution. But by all means, please enlighten us all (much like this unbiased website) with your knowledge of the immeasurable financial and political power that these mosques unfairly weild as they “hinder counter-terror and law enforcement efforts.” Now go light a candle at your Trump alter and say a prayer to “Make ‘Murikuh Great Agin.”

      Reply

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