What can a US citizen do to get husband legal now that the 10-year banned is up?

My husband was deported in February 2002 and banned for 10 yrs, he came back to the U.S in 2003 we got married in September 2003. We lived in the US until august of 2011. We now live in Mexico he was not deported this time we decided to move because we want to get him legalized. We were told that we couldn't do it if he was still inside the country. I'm a US citizen, We have 2 kids both us citizens, he never got arrested when he returned. The only thing is that we got married in the US, filed taxes and so on. We don't want to lie n say that he was in Mexico this whole time. We just want to know what are the possibilities that we have with his case. When he got arrested in 02 he had been in the country less than one year however he didn't speak English then and when we got his file they put there that he had been in the country since 1999. We think this is why he got 10 yrs. Thank you in advance for your advice.