9 Investigates: Ad attacking Walt Disney World's use of foreign workers has ties to hate group

ORLANDO, Fla. — 9 Investigates looked into a new ad attacking Walt Disney World and its use of foreign workers.

The ad claims the theme park is exploiting an immigration loophole and laying off local employees in the process.

The ad is paid for by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR.

The ad talks to former Disney employees from central Florida who were laid off in 2014 in favor of immigrants with temporary visas.

9 Investigates discovered that since 2007, FAIR has been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, for its ties to white supremacist groups.

The Center said the motivation behind FAIR’s ad is rooted in race, not economics.

"I think it is really important in this case to look at where the ad came from,” WFTV political analyst Dr. Rick Foglesong said.

The visa program employed by Disney is one used by dozens of other companies across the U.S. and was amended in 2015 to make it more expensive to bring in the foreign workers.

"We are expanding our IT department and adding more jobs for U.S. IT workers. We have complied with all applicable employment laws," a spokesperson for Disney said.

On Wednesday, Ira Mehlman, a FAIR spokesperson contacted us and released this statement:

"FAIR is a national organization with about 250,000 members and supporters that has been around since 1979. Over the past 37 years, FAIR has been invited to testify before congressional committees on more than a hundred occasions at the request of both Democratic and Republican chairmen. Our representatives are also frequently asked to testify before state legislatures.

FAIR regularly appears on national media and local to discuss immigration policy. If you do a news search for FAIR you will find that we are regularly quoted in major publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, AP, and other outlets.

The SPLC attacks that began about ten years ago have been dismissed by every reputable news organization that covers immigration, and by the congressional and state legislative committees that deal with immigration policy. The charges have been dismissed because they are unfounded and because the SPLC has a documented reputation of mounting smear campaigns against organizations whose views they disagree with.

Ever since 1979, FAIR has maintained a clear position that our immigration policies should not discriminate for or against people based on reasons of race, ethnicity, national origin, or other immutable characteristics. We believe that laws against illegal immigration need to be enforced, and overall levels of immigration reduced, in order to protect the interests of American workers, taxpayers, homeland security, and to prevent excessive population growth. These are the very reasons every nation on earth limits immigration."

WFTV