The Republican mayor of a US city at the centre of debunked slurs about migrants eating pets says he would prefer Donald Trump stayed away.

It came as Trump said he planned to visit Springfield, Ohio, in the next two weeks.

The city has been at the centre of false accusations from him and his Republican US presidential running mate JD Vance that members of the city’s Haitian community – who are legal immigrants – are abducting and eating locals’ pet cats and dogs.

Last weekend, bomb threats prompted the evacuation of schools and government buildings in Springfield as the Republican campaign spread the stories.

Vance has since admitted they weren’t true – although he was defiant about continuing to use the stories. Trump, meanwhile, has refused to back down, despite zero evidence.

Mayor Rob Rue said having Trump in the city would be “an extreme strain on our resources”.

“It’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit,” Rue said this week.

US Vice President Kamala Harris has decried the inflammatory rhetoric about issues such as Haitian migrants, saying voters should ensure he “can’t have that microphone again”.

In a rare extended interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, Harris said threats that have disrupted Springfield had broken her heart.

On Wednesday (US time), she criticised Trump’s promise to deport millions of people who are in the US illegally, questioning whether he would turn to massive raids and detention camps.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference, the nation could find both a pathway to citizenship for those who wanted to come and at the same time secure its border.

“We can do both, and we must do both,” she said.

Trump, for his part, leaned heavily on his alarmist message on immigration as he held a rally at Uniondale on New York’s Long Island.

“We’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country. And we’re not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot,” he said.

Both candidates took a break on Wednesday from campaigning in the toss-up states that will likely decide the November 5 election.

The former president drew a large, roaring crowd in Long Island, giving him a chance to show deep support even in a blue state.

He ripped into Democratic leadership in New York City and state, blaming them for homeless people living in what he called “horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy encampments”, and even conditions on the New York City subway, which he called “squalid and unsafe” and promised to renovate.

“What the hell do you have to lose?” he said in asking for the crowd’s votes.

Harris harked back to the Trump administration’s immigration policies as she bid for Hispanic support.

“While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward,” she said.

“We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history.

“Imagine what that would look like and what that would be? How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?” she said.

Trump has promised to carry out “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” if he’s elected in November. He has offered no details on how such an operation would work.

He has focused on immigration as a top campaign issue and made it a key focus of his remarks on Wednesday.

“Look at what’s happening,” he told his crowd.

“Businesses that are fleeing, money draining out of your state and hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants sucking your public resources dry.”

Earlier, Trump hit out at the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut official interest rates by half a percentage point.

“I guess it shows the economy is very bad to cut it by that much, assuming they’re not just playing politics,” Trump said, on a visit to self-described bitcoin bar PubKey in New York City, before his Long Island rally.

“The economy would be very bad, or they’re playing politics, one or the other. But it was a big cut.”

Harris, meanwhile, said the announcement was welcome news for Americans who had suffered under high prices.

“[But] my focus is on the work ahead to keep bringing prices down,” she said.

“I know prices are still too high for many middle class and working families, and my top priority as president will be to lower the costs of everyday needs like health care, housing, and groceries.”

-with AAP