Mayors of some of the Australian cities earmarked to accept Syrian and Iraqi refugees say they welcome the intake and trust the federal government’s screening process.

New South Wales cities including Wagga Wagga, Albury, Newcastle and Wollongong are among the regional centres that will resettle some of the 12,000 extra refugees Australia has pledged to accept from Syria and Iraq.

That commitment has come under scrutiny after the discovery of a fake Syrian passport near one of the suicide bombers involved in the attack at the Stade de France in Paris on 13 November, stoking fears extremists could be among the group that resettles in Australia.

Rod Kendall, the mayor of Wagga Wagga, which could accept up to 300 refugees, said he had confidence in the government’s security measures. “We’ve been asked questions about the issue but I think the general community response is that all refugees coming to Australia have been screened over a long period of time,” he said.

Wagga Wagga has a history of resettling humanitarian migrants, including from Vietnam in the 1970s and from Afghanistan and Sudan more recently.

This is a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions Henk van de Ven, mayor of Albury

“The refugees become very good citizens and good community participants,” Kendall said. “Essentially they’ve had their lives torn apart, lost family members sometimes, they’ve certainly lost their previous homes and lifestyle.

“And to come to another city where they’re welcome, they become some of the greatest citizens we’ve had in the city.”

The mayor of Albury, Henk van de Ven, said the city, on the Victoria-NSW border, would take some refugees but the numbers had not been decided. The Paris attacks were no reason to fear welcoming them, he said.

“This is a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions,” Van de Ven said. “If you take the view that you can’t take refugees because you think a few of them might perhaps be terrorists, you’re turning a blind eye to that crisis.”

Thousands of European migrants settled in Albury after the second world war and successive waves have included Kosovans in the 1990s and Bhutanese refugees in 2009.

Prof Peter Shergold, who is in charge of coordinating the resettlement of the 4,000 refugees NSW has committed to taking, has also met council representatives from Coffs Harbour, Shellharbour and Armidale.

Kendall said resettlement services needed to be well-resourced and local operators put in charge. “They know the community and know what needs to be put in place to make that resettlement work most efficiently,” he said.

“Don’t, whatever you do, just apply an agency or an NGO to handle the program nationally.”

The first of the 12,000 to be resettled, a Syrian family of five, has arrived in Perth.

In a statement released by the social services minister, Christian Porter, the father, who has not been named, thanked the Australian government for welcoming his family.

“Thank you to the Australian government for opening their doors and providing a better future for me and my children,” he said. “We would just like to thank everybody for giving us a chance at happiness.”

Despite calls by Christian figures to favour religious minorities, the federal government also confirmed on Saturday that the refugees, who come on top of the existing intake of 13,750, would come from all affected communities.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has said the intake should not spark security concerns. “For a number of reasons, we can minimise the risk posed to our country, not least of which is the fact that if we have any hesitation in relation to a particular application we discard it and move on to the next one,” he said.

“We don’t wait for people to arrive and work out if there’s a problem. The government has been very clear about the fact that we are not going to be rushed and we will take all the time that’s required to undertake the security checks, because national security remains our absolute priority.”

The NSW Nationals MP Andrew Fraser was criticised for a Facebook post telling the prime minister to “close the borders”.

“Message to Malcolm Turnbull: Australia does not need Middle Eastern refugees or Islamic boat people,” he wrote.

About 27 governors in the US have tried to block Syrian refugees from settling in their states and the House of Representatives in Washington has passed a bill subjecting those who arrive to intense screening.

The Senate is unlikely to vote on the bill and the US president, Barack Obama, has pledged to veto it.