When
$F$ is a
$p$ -adic field, and
$G\,=\,\mathbb{G}\left( F \right)$ is the group of
$F$ -rational points of a connected algebraic
$F$ -group, the complex vector space
$\mathcal{H}\left( G \right)$ of compactly supported locally constant distributions on
$G$ has a natural convolution product that makes it into a
$\mathbb{C}$ -algebra (without an identity) called the Hecke algebra. The Hecke algebra is a partial analogue for
$p$ -adic groups of the enveloping algebra of a Lie group. However,
$\mathcal{H}\left( G \right)$ has drawbacks such as the lack of an identity element, and the process
$G\,\mapsto \,\mathcal{H}\left( G \right)$ is not a functor. Bernstein introduced an enlargement
${{\mathcal{H}}^{\hat{\ }}}\left( G \right)$ of
$\mathcal{H}\left( G \right)$ . The algebra
${{\mathcal{H}}^{\hat{\ }}}\left( G \right)$ consists of the distributions that are left essentially compact. We show that the process
$G\,\mapsto \,{{\mathcal{H}}^{\hat{\ }}}\left( G \right)$ is a functor. If
$\tau \,:\,G\,\to \,H$ is a morphism of
$p$ -adic groups, let
$F\left( \tau\right):\,{{\mathcal{H}}^{\hat{\ }}}\left( G \right)\,\to \,{{\mathcal{H}}^{\hat{\ }}}\left( H \right)$ be the morphism of
$\mathbb{C}$ -algebras. We identify the kernel of
$F\left( \tau\right)$ in terms of
$\text{Ker}\left( \tau\right)$ . In the setting of
$p$ -adic Lie algebras, with
$\mathfrak{g}$ a reductive Lie algebra,
$\mathfrak{m}$ a Levi, and
$\tau \,:\,\mathfrak{g}\,\to \,\mathfrak{m}$ the natural projection, we show that
$F\left( \tau\right)$ maps
$G$ -invariant distributions on
$\mathcal{G}$ to
${{N}_{G}}\left( \mathfrak{m} \right)$ -invariant distributions on
$\mathfrak{m}$ . Finally, we exhibit a natural family of
$G$ -invariant essentially compact distributions on
$\mathfrak{g}$ associated with a
$G$ -invariant non-degenerate symmetric bilinear form on
$\mathfrak{g}$ and in the case of
$SL\left( 2 \right)$ show how certain members of the family can be moved to the group.