U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to place $100,000 fees on H-1B visa applications will disproportionately harm America's startup space, founders and venture capitalists told CNBC this week.

H-1B visas — which allow companies to temporarily hire foreign workers in skilled occupations such as IT, healthcare and engineering — were already difficult to secure for U.S. startups, due to limited annual quotas.

Over the past year, Desmond Lim, CEO and co-founder of HR, payroll and hiring tech platform Workstream, said all of his startup's H1-B applications had been rejected — something he called "very disappointing" as he tries to secure more top engineering talent.

The year prior, however, Workstream did secure a couple of H-1B hires that Lim told CNBC were "life changing, both for the

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