Our government is very forgiving of law violations for spouses and parents of US citizens . As long as this is the case, there will be (and some immigration forums actually advocate for) marriages to US citizens in order to obtain legal residency. While this may or may not be the case for OP, it should make anyone considering marriage to someone in the US illegally extremely cautious. Since the affidavit of support commits the US citizen to supporting the immigrant for a period of 10 years or until the immigrant satisfies other conditions, all sponsors of family based immigration need to understand what is involved.