Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, a Democrat, called on Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security to investigate a temporary visa program for highly skilled immigrants after a report in The New York Times that technology employees at Walt Disney World in Orlando and other companies lost their jobs to immigrants and had to train their replacements.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Mr. Nelson asked him to examine “potential misuses” of a visa program known as H-1B.

The Times reported Wednesday that about 250 Disney workers were laid off last year and many were replaced by immigrants hired by an outsourcing company based in India.

Before leaving, some of the laid-off workers had to train immigrants on H-1B visas to do their jobs.