Detainees at Guantanamo Bay are already allowed video chats with relatives, but now the International Committee of the Red Cross is pushing for in-person family visits as well. And the Pentagon seems to be taking the possibility seriously, the Washington Post reports:

The Pentagon is considering allowing the families of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to visit them, an unprecedented step to ease the isolation of inmates who in some cases have been held at the U.S. facility for close to a decade, according to congressional aides.

If the Obama administration is considering family visits then it isn’t planning to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay any time soon, as Ed Morrisey points out. But it’s hard to not be wary of the administration’s motives. Some have blamed public opinion for obstructing Obama’s plans to shutter Gitmo. This might sound cynical, but it’s easy to see relatives of detainees exploiting these visits for propaganda purposes, to garner sympathy for the prisoners. To some extent, this has already happened with letters and phone conversations.

Republicans are already pushing back against the proposal. Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon (R–Calif.) has included a ban on any funding for Gauntanamo Bay family visits in the latest Defense Department authorization legislation.