The White House on Tuesday decried the shooting of two Indian engineers in Kansas as an “act of racially motivated hatred,” its strongest comments to date on the incident.

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“The president condemns these and any racially and religiously motivated attacks,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

The FBI announced Tuesday that it will investigate the shooting as a hate crime. According to witnesses , the suspect was heard saying "get out of my country" before opening fire at a restaurant in Olathe, Kan.