Immigration to Canada is the process by which people migrate to Canada and become nationals of the country. People have been migrating to the geographic region of Canada for thousands of years, patterns varying. After 1947 domestic immigration law went through many major changes, most notably with the Immigration Act, 1976, and the current Immigration and Refugee Protection Act from 2002. In Canada there are three categories of immigrants: family class (closely related persons), independent immigrants (admitted on the basis of skill, capital and labour-market requirements) and refugees. Currently Canada is known as a country with a broad immigration policy which is reflected in Canada's ethnic diversity. According to the 2001 census by Statistics Canada, Canada has 34 ethnic groups with at least one hundred thousand members each, of which 10 have over 1,000,000 people and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. 16.2% of the population belonged to visible minorities: most numerous among these are South Asian (4.0% of the population), Chinese (3.9%), Black (2.5%), and Filipino (1.1%).[1] In 2007, Canada received 236,759 immigrants. The top ten sending countries, by state of origin, were People's Republic of China and Hong Kong (28,896), India (28,520), Philippines (19,718), Pakistan (9,808), United States (8,750), United Kingdom (7,324), Iran (7,195), South Korea (5,909), Colombia (5,382), and Sri Lanka (4,068).[2] The top ten source countries were followed closely by France (4,026), and Morocco (4,025), with Romania, Russia and Algeria. each contributing over 3,500 immigrants.