If you entered the US lawfully, your spouse could petition for you and the process would take about 4-6 months. If you entered the US unlawfully, you cannot complete the process within the US under the current immigration laws but would have to go back to your home country to consular process and departing the US would cause you to trigger an automatic 10 year bar to reentry, which can only be waived by a showing of extreme hardship to a US citizen spouse, which is fairly difficult to do in most cases.
Answered on Feb 20th, 2012 at 6:48 PM