The purpose of the credible fear interviews is to screen out the asylum claims that are obviously without merit so that they don’t clog up an already overcrowded immigration court system. Sending applicants to an asylum officer before the case goes to court (which already happens when people who are inside the country apply for asylum) would serve to screen out the obviously valid claims. That would leave the court with those claims that are neither obviously without merit nor obviously worthy of a grant, i.e., the hard cases. Those are the ones that require the most preparation and time so expediting them as proposed is a bad idea. Few attorneys I know can handle cases on that short time frame. Besides, putting these new cases at the front of the queue moves everyone else back and would make the backlog even worse. The solution? Make the immigration courts independent and give them the resources needed to tackle their huge caseload.
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“give them the resources needed to tackle their huge caseload.”
Like so many things, the actual answer is to spend enough money to do it right. Which is of course, the last thing people want to do.