Custody and repatriation (C&R; Chinese: 收容遣送; pinyin: shōuróng qiǎnsòng) was an administrative procedure, established in 1982 and abolished in 2003, by which the police in the People's Republic of China (usually cities) could detain people if they did not have a residence permit (hukou) or temporary living permit (zanzhuzheng), and return them to the place where they could legally live or work (usually rural areas).
[1] It built on a 1961 party directive implementing the hukou system of residence (traditional family registers found in several Asian countries), work permits (issued by police on behalf of work units or employers) to prevent uncontrolled population movements, as passports and visas do internationally, and Resident Identity Cards.
In turn, this regulation extended older rules that were used to enforce extrajudicial movements of Nationalist troops away from liberated cities.
[2] In reaction to Sun's death, two groups of senior Chinese legal scholars wrote to the National People's Congress, questioning the constitutionality of the custody and repatriation regulation.
As a result, it was argued, the C&R law for migrant workers was unconstitutional, on the grounds that it violated citizens' rights articles of the Constitution.