This op-ed by Michael Keegan, President, People For the American Way was originally published at The Huffington Post.

Late last month, news broke that the network of political organizations tied to Charles and David Koch was developing plans to spend nearly a billion dollars in the 2016 elections.

Given that unprecedented investment, it's essential to understand precisely what the Kochs and their front groups are doing. Yesterday, People for the American Way released a new report exploring one of these groups: the Libre Initiative, which aims to win over Latino voters for Republicans.

With much of its funding coming from the Kochs, Libre has the resources it needs to try to run an aggressive campaign aimed at making inroads in the Latino community. As Politico reported recently, "Libre, which already has a presence in eight states, plans to expand to Wisconsin and North Carolina this year and increase its staff by about 30 percent ahead of 2016."

The group's millions go to promoting conservative causes to the Latino community and using deceptive ads to attack Democrats. Civil rights leader and People for the American Way board member Dolores Huerta described Libre best: "This is just another flashy way for the Koch brothers to try to con Latinos into supporting a party that's run by anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, anti-environmental extremists. We won't be fooled; the group has the wrong priorities on the issues that matter most to us." Though the group is doing all it can to push GOP priorities like blocking an increase in the minimum wage and rallying against clean energy development, poll after poll has shown that the majority of Latinos and Libre aren't on the same page when it comes to these and other issues.

If Libre stuck to debating the issues, that would be one thing. Libre's real threat — both to Democrats and to the Latino community — is that it uses its considerable financial resources to say one thing and do another.

In typical Koch fashion, Libre has made vicious, often dishonest attacks against Democrats. It's ironic, albeit unsurprising, that the Democrats Libre attacked in 2014 included some of the strongest Latino voices in Congress, like former U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Texas). And based on Libre's actions in the past, we can count on Libre to pay only lip service to supporting immigration reform. So far, the Libre playbook has gone like this: Claim to support immigration reform, applaud Speaker Boehner for making vague remarks somewhat supportive of immigration reform, and — here's the kicker — run attack ads against Democrats who actually vote in favor of immigration reform.

Activists shouldn't hold our breath hoping that the Kochs and other deep-pocketed conservatives will stop their lies. Instead, it's up to us to push back. PFAW's doing that by reaching out to Latino voters with a focus on the issues that matter and calling out Republicans when their promises just don't match up with their votes.

Despite Libre's deep coffers and its apparent desire to win over Latino voters to the GOP, that party's offensive anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions continue. Just look at the current Congress, where Republicans are hijacking funding for the Department of Homeland Security to block the president's executive actions on immigration even though, as Ted Hesson wrote at Fusion, "only a small minority of Americans think that's the best way to approach the issue" in Congress.

As long as Republicans keep opposing policies that most Latinos and Americans as a whole support, it's unlikely the Libre Initiative will have much success. But given the deep support and huge bank accounts of its two most important funders, the threat posed by Libre is one that we should all take seriously.