The post about Lodz passport correspondence reminded me of a question I have about visas issued overseas.

My grandparents, with their infant son, went back to Russia from the U.S. sometime in 1925.  They probably stayed with my grandfather's parents in Shklov, Mogilev province in what is today Belarus.  But the political environment was not what they had hoped it would be, and they decided to return to the U.S.  A passenger manifest shows that they traveled from Rotterdam to New York aboard the SS Volendam, arriving on Dec. 4, 1926.  The manifest also indicates that visas were issued for them in Riga, Latvia on Oct. 1, 1926.  

What agency would have issued those visas?  Neither of my grandparents was a U.S. citizen at that point, although my uncle (the infant son) certainly was, having been born in NYC.  Would copies of the visas be available somewhere?  A recent Genealogy Index Search Request that I submitted to the USCIS yielded no information on my grandfather that I didn't already have.

Thanks.

Ellen Morosoff Pemrick
  
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Researching WEISSMAN/VAYSMAN (Ostropol, Ukraine); MOROZ and ESTRIN/ESTERKIN (Shklov & Bykhov, Belarus); LESSER/LESZEROVITZ, MAIMAN, and BARNETT/BEINHART/BERNHART (Lithuania/Latvia); and ROSENSWEIG/ROSENZWEIG, KIRSCHEN, and SCHWARTZ (Botosani, Romania)